Overwhelmed & Underdressed
by DevilMakesThree
Summary: Trevor Tweak's life is pretty kitsch. He plays lead guitar in a four piece feminist riot girl band, smokes clove cigarettes, and  is dating-not-dating Christophe DeLorne. But then there's Craig Tucker's lips, like wow, and Trevor's all shook up.
1. Cancel Your Junk

**A/N - So hey guys. I decided to try writing something new. **

**Brief explanation of Tweek's given name:**

**In the South Park universe I have crafted with my good friend Jess, Tweek Tweak is just kind of a silly name to give someone, and it's hardly what anyone would call realistic. So, of course, a real name for him had to be thought up. So why 'Trevor'.**

**Jess has this cat. This orange tabby cat, who is on the fritz 99 percent of the time. To put it to you plain, I lived in the same house as this cat for 2 months and it only let me pick it up one time. And when he did he'd cuddle for about a minute and then look at you like he just realized you were a Kong zombie and leap out of your arms like he was being chased by fiendfyre. So. We dubbed Tweek 'Trevor' and in any story where I use Tweek, this is what I will call him.**

**Trevor Tweak is the complete creation of Jess and Trevor the Cat, and I give due credit.**

**So. Here we go. Hope you dig.**

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><p>Chapter Track: Huggy Bear - Carn't Kiss<p>

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><p>Craig Tucker is looking at me like maybe he wants to kill me, maybe fuck me in the mouth, maybe gurgle up my insides through a straw. I can't say I blame him either, with the two of us standing so dangerously close to one another, sopping with the chemical foam from the fire extinguisher and what I understand to be the down feathers from Token's mother's most prized uncomfortable armchair.<p>

The _thunk _of the extinguisher hitting the marble floor doesn't shock me as much as it would have under normal circumstances, nor does the squeal of surprise from the half-naked girl across the room. And as much as I would love to turn tail and run like Wally West from Zoom in _Infinite Crisis_, something tells me that Craig Tucker would chase me, and then beat me into pulp for ever thinking I could run faster than the guy who's been the North Park High Varsity Track MVP since we were fourteen. Forgoing that option, I decide to whimper like a wounded animal instead, hoping that perhaps Craig will take pity on me and only beat me into chunky chicken soup (much more manageable than pulp, if you ask me). The girl in the corner scoffs, and I'm inclined to flip her the bird but I'm too wrecked to actually move at all.

"What the fuck."

Craig's voice is different than before, I think, and then I want to punch myself in the eye because _of course _he sounds different from the last time you spoke on the _playground, _you complete and utter buffoon.

_You did hear him laugh at a joke once, two years ago. Or maybe it was Clyde laughing. But Craig was there. Did his voice sound different then?_ My brain supplies this information to me with the casual attitude one might save for wringing out a wet dish sponge.

I groan and press my fingers into my scalp, digging my nails in until I can feel blood bubbling up underneath of them. The gesture is soothing, and gives me the good sense to at least look away from those intense violet lasers that are currently charading as the eyeballs inside of Craig Tucker's pretty head.

"Dude, do you have a fucking boner?"

This probably could get worse, but in the hopes that it can't possibly I jam my palms into my eyes and say 'Low point' under my breath like it's some kind of mantra.

"Craig, what the fuck?"

That's the girl. Her voice is shrill and high-pitched and glosses over my ears with the delicate nature of a rabid badger. I wince, whimpering a second time and backing into the wall. This doesn't do much to hide my boner, but I figure since Craig's sporting a tent as well that I don't have to feel _so _bad.

Craig looks at the girl and holds up a hand, just as she's about to repeat her question. Her lips come back together like buttons and I catch myself thinking that Craig Tucker has got to be the ultimate Captain of Cool. The Sultan of Swish. The Emperor of Ease. I picture him drinking Dos Equis on a yacht with a harem of half-naked Arabian girls and go a bit red in the face.

"Dude. What the _fuck?"_

Craig repeats this to me, his eyes narrowed like an overripe house cat. I half expect him to roll onto his back and take a swipe at my ankle, and even though I know that's ridiculous I inch towards the door.

"Craig—"

"Annie, shut the fuck up," he's snapping at the girl now, and then his cat eyes are back on me and they're all smoldering like a goddamn LA fire and he asks again, "Dude, what the fuck was that?"

And all I can think to say is:

"It was a fucking kiss."

Before I bolt straight out the door.

* * *

><p>Cut to earlier that same morning, and I'm just getting out of bed. The clock says that its forty-six minutes after six am, but I know it's only twenty after five. The power outage last month really fucked my shit up but I can't bring myself to reset it to the correct time. This may be some profound attempt at neo-anarchism (fuck the system), or it could just be me being lazy. I think it's more than likely that I'm just a dud with a capital D, but it gives me something to tell my dad when he makes a fucking comment.<p>

I guess I should explain from the getgo that my parents are really nice people. They don't beat me, or drink too much, or drink too little—they're pretty middle of the road. They're just very narrow in their views and opinions and often they are of the view/opinion that I am a high-functioning psycho. It was only two years ago that my mom stopped taking me to see doctors, and I'll never forget the episode it took to ensure that little nugget. My mother had cried for three weeks afterwards—not pretty.

But I can't say I regret it, especially as I drag on my favorite pair of slim fit jeans which, two years ago, I was hiding under my bed to keep my mom from tossing in the garbage. They were a pair of skinnies once, I think, but they've been worn, torn, patched, splattered in bleach, and washed with red towels. They've been lost, found, sewn up, sewn down, cuffed, shared, and studded. They are the inanimate embodiment of my transition from ugly and awkward to—well. Less ugly, and more awkward. And that is really something I hold dear to my heart. The sweater I tug over my head is green, knit, and unraveling a bit at the collar. It's kind of small, but I kind of like my clothes that way. Clingy. It makes me feel held in, like maybe if I wear my clothes close to my skin I'll spare myself the angsty backlash that is me totally falling apart.

The kitchen is still dimly lit when I come down the stairs, and I feel a rare moment of affection for my mother, who has set our coffee pot to brew at precisely 5:30 every morning so that there is a fresh cup waiting for me the second I'm ready for it. I like that. Perfect timing. It always makes me feel like some kind of wizard. Like some kind of freaky timelord, and fuck yeah, timelords. I dump the pot into a thermos, fill it with some half and half, and grab my messenger bag off the kitchen table. I slip on a beat up pair of Toms on my way out the door, because, fuck shoelaces, and step out into the morning. It's still dark, but I've always kind of liked walking to school when it's still dark. I fish my cigarettes out of my back pocket and light a match.

My house is on an awkward edge of town, where I'm perpendicular to just about everything that matters, and to get anywhere I've got to walk about a mile in the wrong direction so I can make a right turn. Sometimes, when I'm feeling particularly raw about it, I hop my neighbor's fences—but I don't risk it today. Today I take the long way, and listen to my iPod. My iPod isn't really an iPod—it's some kind of lesser brand MP3 player that does the same exact job for half the fucking price. It's kind of sleek and black and has glitter glue on the back that says 'tunes', courtesy of Jenny (In case anyone wasn't sure what sort of paraphernalia one keeps on their iPod-Not-iPod). I drag off my cigarette and set the thing to shuffle.

I guess you could say I've changed a lot since middle school. Or maybe just grown taller. Got some nicer clothes. I still throw tantrums like I'm five when things don't go my way and I still eat otterpops when I'm bumming hard. But I feel like I've grown into this sense of purpose, the sort that I didn't really have before when I was just that tweaked out kid who was afraid of panty gnomes. People even call me by my first name these days—the people who know me well, anyways. The people who aren't total dicks.

The people who are willing to forget the weirdass shit from preschool and get a goddamn grip.

My mind flicks without permission to my old posse, and I wonder to myself if Clyde Donavon still cries if he doesn't get what he wants for Christmas.

Pussy.

* * *

><p>"Hey, faggot."<p>

I look up when I hear my nickname. The watch I keep around my left ankle says it's twenty-three after eight but I know it's only a quarter after seven. Emily Bright is stalking towards me with her school bag slipping down her ass. You gotta admire girls like Emily, who can make 5'2" look as daunting as 6'5". She's an ultimately intimidating lipstick les, with her feet nestled in these lita boots with spiked studs on the heel, and her tiny frame is drowning in this oversized Black Flag tee-shirt that she's cut and made into a really short dress. I think about telling her she looks good, but I don't, at the risk of being punched in the mouth.

"Hey Ems."

"Trevor," she says my name as though we're long-standing business partners. I smirk as she goes on to roll her eyes and say, "I hate those fucking pants."

I flash her my most winning smile, not surprised to find that she has a cigarette in her mouth like it's always been there. I blink as she lights it, fishing my own out of my pocket.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be fucking sorry. God, you're a wuss. Tell me to fuck off," Emily snaps, and thwacks my head like I've just said something really insolent. And maybe I did.

"Fuck off," I say flatly, and 'oof' as she thwacks my head again.

"Don't talk to a fucking lady like that. Who the fuck do you think you are?"

"Liberace."

"Oh, fuck, I hate you. Scoot over."

I scoot.

We smoke and I listen to Emily's morning rant about the heteropatriarchy and how someone's gotta smash it. This reminds me of Mario, and I kind of drift off until it's time for class.

* * *

><p>Emily and I became friends when I was fourteen and confused. We sat next to each other in Chemistry and she used to throw wadded up pieces of notebook paper at my head. It wasn't until Christmastime that it occurred to me to check inside for notes. Turns out she wanted to talk, so talk we did. We haven't really stopped talking ever since—not even when she got with Lola and they started doing coupley shit like going to the movies. I guess that's how I know that Em loves me. Because she texts me pictures of her in her bra at six in the morning and calls me faggot with affection.<p>

Lola is not so different from how she's always been. She still hangs around with the likes of Wendy Testaberger and Bebe Stevens, and goes shopping after class and talks about hair and makeup and cuticles. A totally different animal from the girl who wears lingerie in front of an audience and shouts into a mic like she's Cherie Currie on the weekends. Lola is an enigma to me, but she's what makes Emily happy, and the band wouldn't be the same without her.

The band is called _Junk_, and we're all about feminism. The riot grrrl scene around Park County was deader than disco until about a year ago, when Jenny Simon heard me strumming Wonderwall at some party I didn't want to be at and asked me if I'd ever wanted to be in a band. Jenny has always been about the music, and is also incredibly persuasive. I found myself at a rehearsal despite my better judgment (and complete social anxiety. I fucking hate when people look at me), and before long, I had Emily on the drums. With Jenny on bass and me on guitar, the last thing we really needed was a singer.

It was Jenny's idea to ask Lola. There's some awkward history between the two of them, probably some residual tension from when Jenny used to be one of the populars. Things are different after that whole Eavesdropper incident, and nowadays Jenny's got a full sleeve of tattoos and a septum piercing.

The girls and I practice every other school day and twice on the weekends; it pretty much runs my life but that's the way I like things. I guess it sounds pretty fucking out there, a skinny gay dude playing guitar in a feminist riot grrrl band—but I think that of all the boy feminists out there, I'm probably the one with the most pristine skills on the guitar. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but when you give a kid with a lot of nervous energy something to focus on? Magic happens. Magic of the idiot savant variety, but I think I've learned to accept that.

Guitar is the only thing I'm good at.

That, and smashing the heteropatriarchy with my fists.

Someone's gotta do it, I guess. And in typical hipster fashion, who better than someone who absolutely no one listens to?

I recognize the mortality of my opinion.

"God, you're a bitch, Lola. Can you change your tampon or something? Fuck me, freddy."

I sigh. Jenny and Lola have been arguing for what feels like an eternity, and I am sitting on the sofa in Emily's garage. Emily's garage is the type of space that parents give their kids when they actually like them. It's warm, comfortable, and virtually sound proof. We can smoke cigarettes with the door open and sneak in beers on Fridays. It's a haven, until Jenny and Lola get into it. Emily sighs and flops down beside me, and I know she's thinking the same thing.

"Misogynistic cunt," Lola growls, and I have to roll my eyes because for girls who love women they certainly know how to talk to eachother like shit. I drag off my cigarette.

"You guys better knock this shit off before the party tonight, or I'm gonna go totally apeshit," Emily chimes in, and Lola immediately backs down. Oh, to be young and whipped like a goddamn vanilla sundae. Emily can turn down Lola's aggro in about four seconds flat, which is both miraculous and beautiful at the same time. Jenny, however, is more difficult to put off the hunt when she knows she smells blood. I don't try to intervene—it never has done me any good.

So instead of trying to be reasonable, I say "What party?" because no one's felt the need to mention this to me yet and it's half past five in the afternoon.

"Well if fucking Lola would stop being a total feminazi, maybe we could play some fucking tunes," Jenny snaps, ignoring me. Emily snaps something about how Jenny's being immature, and Lola rolls her eyes. Nobody feels the need to answer me and I am annoyed.

Being the only boy feminist in a group of lady feminists can sometimes have its pitfalls. More often than not, my opinions about things are ignored, swept aside, or dismissed quicker than Bill Clinton from the White House after he got downtown from Condoleezza.

I clear my throat, and try again. Once more, with feeling, and all that shit.

"Hey, guys. What fucking party?"

Lola looks at me like I've perhaps grown a second head, and Jenny scoffs.

"Token Black's party tonight, dipshit. God, you're like a Martian," Lola says, and Jenny nods her head in agreement. I guess I should have learned by now that the best way to shut them up is to guide their attention to something they hate even more than each other—that something being me and my Johnson and my Johnson's Marxist ideology.

"We're going to support the band," Emily says, reaching out a hand to ruffle my hair like I'm five and she's my mischievous elder brother, "Christophe will be there."

Christophe DeLorne is not my boyfriend, but sometimes we fuck. Sometimes we even do coupley things, like seeing movies and holding hands and drinking coffee and shit. He plays the synth in this post-punk art rock group called Banana Ghost. He is eighteen and a Scorpio and likes it when you touch behind his knees. Sometimes, I am the one who touches him behind his knees. We both listen to S.C.U.M. and like Butterscotch flavored Frozen Yogurt. It's practically written in the stars.

"Ngh—I fucking hate parties," I groan, slipping backwards off the arm of the couch and flopping dejectedly onto the cushion. I knock a few ashes from my cigarette onto my face before I sit up, looking bored. "I don't want to go."

"Oh okay, don't worry about it, then," Jenny says, smiling. I smile back hesitantly.

"You mean it?"

* * *

><p>It's nine o'clock and I am at Token Black's party. I'm wearing a pair of black skinny jeans with a gray tee shirt that has tinkerbell on the front, and a faded denim blazer. I have had four rum and cokes and a few shots of whisky, and swallowed four innocuous tablets from Tammy Nelson's stash. This is how Lola finds me, with her long brown hair in a headband that isn't holding any of her hair back. I reach up and touch her bangs with my fingers, it having just occurred to me that her hair has looked exactly the same since we were in elementary school.<p>

"How fucked up are you?" she asks me, shouting over the music so that I can hear. I shrug a shoulder, leaning harder back against the wall.

"Pretty fucked up," I reply. Lola doesn't look very impressed, and she opens her mouth like she might say something motherly and scolding. "I have to pee," I say, and I'm inside the bathroom before she can argue with me.

This always happens to me at parties, which is why I don't go to them. I come, I get fucked up, I get bored, I get anti-social, and I sit in the fucking bathroom by myself, like I'm fucking Kip Drordy or something. Lola bangs on the door for like a second, and then she's gone.

I appreciate that she cares for like a second, but then that's gone, too and I'm just basking in how shitfaced I am.

I don't remember when I stopped worrying about shit like ODing, or alcohol poisoning, or getting sick—but somewhere in between middle school and the tenth grade I kind of stopped caring about dying or getting into trouble. My worries and anxieties have become much more legitimate (I'd like to think) and now things like getting drunk and popping some hallucinogens seems like collateral to the scene that keeps my paranoid psychoses in check.

I sigh, looking at the watch around my ankle. It's seventeen after eleven, which means that it's five after ten and I've been in the bathroom for almost an hour. I drag my ass off the toilet seat, feeling kind of sort of more sober than I did when Lola tried to give me the third degree. My stomach still lurches when I try to walk, and I know I'll feel like my insides are on fire when I wake up in the morning. The throng of inebriated teens between me and anywhere I could go that doesn't have a bunch of people around is massive, and I try to push between them for the porch. Maybe I can smoke there in peace.

I spot Christophe on the stairs, and feel a little less claustrophobic. I'd forgotten about his promised presence at this shindig, and just seeing him makes the whole thing worth it. If I am being honest with myself, I've always kind of hoped that eventually he and I would be real boyfriends, because sometimes when he talks I get butterflies. This may or may not imply that I am in love with him. It is yet to be decided.

_Perhaps I could decide tonight, after we fuck _I think and push my way towards him. There is a cigarette dangling from his lips and his eyes are closed and I think he must be as drunk as I am because he's kind of shaking. Or maybe he's not shaking, and I'm just way fucking slammed. I stagger between two girls making out and drop my cell phone.

How my cellphone ended up in my drunkass hands is a mystery even to me, and I hope I haven't sent anyone any text messages as I stumble towards the ground to pick it up. Someone steps on my fingers and I yelp, looking up just in time to see my boyfriend-not-boyfriend shoot a load into some random's mouth. That random turns out not to be so random as I realize it's Greg, Christophe's one time love interest (evil ex boyfriend) and upperclass douchebag extraordinaire. For some reason this really pisses me off. I mean, I know Christophe and I are only sometimes fucking, and sometimes doing coupley things like going to the movies—but what the fuck?

I guess he assumed I wouldn't be here.

I'd just as soon rather not be.

I scoff, or what drunk!me thinks is a scoff and shove my way up the stairs, past the happy couple and towards Token Black's bedroom, where I remember there is a balcony. I maintain small hope that there's no one up there, since most of the party is downstairs, and drag myself up the million and a half steps rather desperately.

I need a cigarette. And to sober up.

And once those two things happen, I am making like a goddamn tree.

First things first though—where the fuck is Token's room?

I have grossly underestimated the sheer size of the Black's estate and now that I am standing at the top of the grand staircase I have no idea where to go. I take a sweet guess and stagger towards a room at the end of the long hallway, where light is spilling out onto the carpet from beneath the door. It takes me like a fucking year to get there, and when I do I'm pretty winded. I grab the knob and throw the thing open rather haphazardly, not bothering to cover my eyes. Whatever might be going down in there is nothing I haven't seen before in porn and I really couldn't care less if—

I blink rather stupidly, frozen to the spot.

The room is, indeed, occupied, and the occupant is a boy in black jockeys who is rubbing at a sizable erection with his palm. I swallow, leaning against the doorframe, too drunk to turn tail. He looks up after a moment, and my heart literally stops fucking beating.

Craig Tucker is gazing at me with his crazy ass eyes and I want to turn into dust and blow out the fucking window.

Craig and I have history, I guess. We were friends, once upon a time. Or rather, he tolerated my presence for most of elementary school and when middle school came around and I started having wet dreams about his naked body I stopped forcing him to do so. Craig is probably the best looking guy I've ever known, and about as approachable as a tiger shark. His eyes alone could turn an unsuspecting victim to stone, I'm pretty sure. Like Medusa, or some shit.

Craig sits up from the bed, and I glance with heavily lidded eyes at the bulge in his underwear. He's not glaring, exactly—it's tentative. I step forward and he raises an eyebrow. I step again and he doesn't say a fucking word. He just pulls a cigarette out of a box on the bedside table and lights it with a candle.

I'm so drunk, and he's so pretty, and I'm so upset about Christophe, and it seems like a good idea in the moment that I do it. I walk about ten steps forward and place my hands on his naked shoulders. The second my lips connect with his, though, I know I've made a mistake. A warm, smokey, tingling mistake that I can feel all the way down in my fucking toes. And oh my god, god, god, god I used to dream about doing this and oh my god, god, god I've got to be fucking dreaming right now and oh my god, god, god this can't be fucking real life because in real life I'm a fucking pussy and Craig Tucker is not gay.

A door opens somewhere, but my drunken mind can't register it fast enough to pull away. So what breaks us up instead is a girl's voice that I don't quite recognize, and it's screaming, "What the fuck?" at such an incredible decibel that I am forced away from Craig Tucker's mouth by instinct alone. My hands clamp over my ears, and I close my eyes, staggering back until I hit the edge of this really decorated armchair near the window. Somehow Craig's cigarette is in my hand, and the realization of what I've just done hits me like a stack of bricks in the face. I grimace, turning my body in an attempt to bolt to the door. The maneuver knocks over a bottle of Everclear that had been tucked into the chair's cushion, and in my haste to snatch it before it tips I drop Craig's cigarette. The sudden burst of flames doesn't scare me the way it would have if I were at all sober.

Before I can think to ask for help, Craig is beside me with a fire extinguisher. Panicking, I grab the pillow off the chair and begin to beat it against the floor. Craig seems surprised by this, and in his surprise he drops the nozzle of the extinguisher. At the same time, the pillow I'm rather shamelessly beating into the marble floor decides to explode into a cloud of down feathers, and I drop it like a hot potato.

The extinguisher hits the ground with a _thunk _and I am so sober that I could probably do a cartwheel on a balance beam.

* * *

><p>I'm sitting in my car for nearly twenty minutes before I relent that the fucking piece of shit isn't going to start. I suppose it's a good time to admit that I was right. Things could get worse, and low and behold they have. I groan and smash my forehead into the steering wheel. Did I really kiss <em>Craig Tucker?<em>

Even drunken jealousy cannot excuse that level of blatant disregard for my personal well-being. Tucker is definitely not the runt of the bunch. The guy's a fucking amazon, and he may be thin as a rail but I know for a fact that he can throw a fucking punch. I've seen him do it. And if not him, then one of his hip posse—

I imagine Token Black and Clyde Donavon tag teaming me and I want to die. And if I could turn on my goddamn car, I might just park it in Token's driveway and let the carbon monoxide take me to Valhalla, or Valencia, or wherever it is idiotic gay hipster douchebags go when they off themselves for the greater good.

A tap on my window nearly sends me through the roof. I look up in exasperation, prepared to tell whatever asshole had the nerve to touch my wagon that they need to go fuck themselves, but I stop myself as I realize it's Craig Tucker himself whose got the nerve. And me? I've got nothing.

I swallow the lump in my throat and pump the window crank.

I may as well face it like a man.

No use delaying the inevitable.

"Look, can you be quick? I'm fucking drunk. I'm drunk and I'm cold and I want to go home," I say without looking up, and it takes me a minute to realize that I'm actually _whining _at the guy like some over-pampered school girl.

I wait with bated breath for the connection of Craig's massive spider-like fist with the side of my skull, but it doesn't happen. And when I look up out of sheer morbid curiosity it's to him leaning against my car and puffing on a cigarette with all the casual flair of a real lady killer. Which I've heard he is.

"You kissed me. I don't even know you. Who the fuck does that?" he asks, taking a hit on his cigarette and then looking over his shoulder at me. I grip my steering wheel until my knuckles turn white.

"I was drunk," I snap, suddenly feeling defensive. Only Craig Tucker could make kissing someone who had their fucking hand in their underwear sound like some kind of sacrilege.

"I thought you were still drunk. So which is it?"

I shrug like a five year old and toss my blonde hair out of my eyes. My fingers grip the tips of my fringe, running all the way back to the close-cut hair on the back of my head. I can feel Craig's laser eyes boring into the side of my cheek and I want to drive away.

"So what's this, an '87?"

I look up, and apparently the shock is evident on my face because Craig rolls his eyes and leans his elbows against the ledge of my door.

"I used to have a wagon, asshole. Have you tried giving it gas and jiggling your key? Sometimes it'll make the fucking ignition catch if you jiggle it."

I'm looking at Craig like he is some kind of seven foot tall alien invader from the planet Zerg. I grit my teeth, turning my keys in the ignition and giving them a jiggle with my foot on the gas pedal. My engine rumbles to life and I want to scream. Because things have somehow gotten _worse _than worse and that is just so fucking unfair I can't stand it. I swallow and roll my eyes, tossing Craig a rather surly look as I put my car in drive.

He steps back, hands going immediately to his jeans pockets.

"No need to thank me, dipshit," he says after a moment of strained silence. I turn redder and stare straight ahead of me.

"Thanks. I guess," I mumble.

We sit there in what has got to be the most tangible silence of all awkward silences, my engine rumbling and Craig's hands shifting uncomfortably in his jeans. I try to think how to end the conversation without seeming like a total dick, and I can't think of anything so I settle on gazing indifferently out my windshield. Craig turns after a minute, crushing his cigarette under his Doc Marten boot and crossing the lawn as though none of this ever happened.

I find myself wishing I could do the same as I rumble down the path to the main road.


	2. Pussy Super Star

**A/N - Thank you so much for all your reviews, and to anyone who favorited this story it means so much to me. You guys rock! I hope this next chapter is up to par! I'm gonna try to do a chapter a week. We'll see if I can manage!**

**Goals. What are they?**

* * *

><p>Chapter Track: Jack Off Jill – My Cat<p>

* * *

><p>I wake up with a headache to rival the destruction of Pompeii and instantly wish I hadn't drank so much. The clock beside my bed says its thirteen after twelve in the afternoon and I curse to myself because I hate sleeping in past eleven. My body feels stiff and bottomed out, and I'm dying for a cigarette. And a fucking toothbrush.<p>

The balls of my feet tingle when they touch my carpet. I have a vague recollection of Tammy Nelson and groan. This always happens to me when I go to parties. I do too much, and in the moment it seems like a fantastic idea and then I'm crawling like fucking gollum out of my sheets and I wonder why the fuck I even went at all.

I stagger to the bathroom and run the faucet over my hands, cupping the cool water in my palms and splashing it resolutely on my face. I blink it out of my eyelashes and try to remember how I managed to get back in my own bed as I reach for my toothbrush and toothpaste. I suppose I drove myself home, which is equally mortifying. I should really start walking to these shindigs if I'm going to-

My toothbrush clatters into the sink and there's blue foam dribbling down my chin as memories from last night flood across my brain like a broken dam.

Oh. My. Fuck.

The faucet is still running as I stumble back into my bedroom, diving for my cellphone and dropping it about seven times before I manage to drag my thumb across the screen. Seven new text messages. Oh, please, for the love of all that is good and holy do not let any of those be from...

But they're not.

They're from Christophe.

I sigh in relief and flop back on my mattress.

Okay, okay. So maybe no one heard about what happened. Maybe Craig didn't say anything to anyone. Maybe he didn't tell anyone about-

What even was that? A fucking kiss? I guess in the grand scheme of things it's not that big of a fucking deal but I can't help but feel like someone's just sat me down and informed me of the coming apocalypse. I rub my eyes and open my inbox.

Christophe has nothing even remotely redeeming to say and I delete every text before I bother reading them in full. I can't help but still feel a little raw about that whole ordeal. Even when two people are only just sort-of-dating, I like to think that there are rules. Obligations. Levels of mutual fucking respect that begin with having the courtesy not to mouthfuck your shitty ex boyfriend in the middle of a crowd of people. Drunk or not, people pay attention to that shit.

I sigh and drop my phone onto my pillow. It feels like I've just woken up from a really elaborate dream, but the residual smell of booze and the memory of Craig's violet eyes reassures me that I'm wide awake and it is morning and last night things happened and I have to be held accountable for them. This make me want to curl up with my My Little Pony throw blanket and eat a bowl of Fruity Pebbles in front of the TV downstairs. It's 11:07 in the morning and there's reruns of Scooby Doo on Cartoon Network.

What I do instead is pull on my favorite jeans and a clean tee shirt and head to Emily's place.

Emily answers the door in a pair of Batman underwear and I look away to be polite. I didn't get any pictures of her in her bra this morning, which means that Lola is probably lurking around in her bedroom.

"Fuck me, dude. What the fuck?" she groans, and I can tell I've woken her up. I can't really bring myself to care as I believe my predicament to be a little more important than her getting her beauty rest.

"I made out with Craig Tucker," I lament, and drop my head onto her shoulder. She looks surprised for a second before she lets me in, saying "I hate those fucking pants" as we step into her hallway. She stalks off up the stairs, presumably to put on jeans and I seat myself like a waiting room patient on her couch.

When she comes back she's got Lola in tow, and they're both looking at me with grim expressions. I drop my head back against the sofa and sigh.

"I was so drunk. I hate parties. This is your fucking fault."

"Oh, please. Let me call you a fucking wahmbulance," Emily snaps, plopping down on the cushion beside me. She folds her arms and waits like I'm gonna say something. But I can't think of anything reasonable or mature to pull out of my ass so what I do instead is stick my tongue out like a petulant child.

"Cute," Lola mumbles, and sits on my other side. I notice she's got bruises down her neck and roll my eyes. I don't mind that they do coupley shit just so long as I don't have to see it. It's like, you see two people and you know they fuck and it's kind of cute to think like, Oh, cool, those two people. They get it on. Good for them. But bruises and bites and shit? That's like, happening right in front of you. Like they got it on and you probably just missed it and now you have to deal with it like it's not there. I shift in my seat uncomfortably and turn my nose up in the air.

"Did anyone see you do it?"

I look up at Lola with tired eyes.

"I don't know. No. I guess not," I relent, sensing already that Lola is about to say something that I will more than likely vastly disagree with. She shrugs a slender shoulder, looking at me with calculated green eyes.

"Then don't worry about it. Tucker doesn't talk."

Lola does make a fair point. Craig Tucker is notoriously low-key. I'm pretty sure I didn't even know what he looked like until the ninth grade, when he took his hat off for a school picture and everyone within a five mile radius tuned into the fact that the guy's a fucking hipster Adonis. He is the Ian Curtis of North Park High, and I know people who would sell organs to be in that guy's fucking circle. The funny thing is, I don't think Craig really cares that he has a circle. I don't think he really cares about anything at all.

But he is a good kisser.

The thought occurs to me like one of those 'aha!' moments in cartoons—with the fucking lightbulb, and shit. The big "Did you know that?" of the Bill Nye variety, and I'm staring at my two leading ladies with my mouth wide open. I'm half expecting them to put something in there, and I guess that's why I close it just as quickly, arms folded over my chest.

This is definitely news.

This is big.

This is…

Unexpected.

I look up at Emily, brimming with the overzealous need to inform her of what has just occurred deep down in my dearly departed brain. She raises her eyebrows, and I can feel Lola's green eyes on my back. I lick my lips and dig my nails into my thighs.

"He kissed me back."

* * *

><p>The rest of the weekend passes kind of like a trip to the beach. My mood is pretty rotten, mostly waves of intense anxiety followed by the childish desire to bury myself alive. By the time Monday morning rolls around, I'm running on about three hours of sleep and my hands are shaking so bad that I feel like I'm in grade school. Luckily, no one seems to have been informed about my drunken tryst with Craig Tucker, so I skate through my first few classes relatively judgment-free.<p>

I'm not sure how I really feel about the whole situation. As much as I enjoyed the kiss, and as satisfied as I feel knowing that to some extent, Craig must have enjoyed it, too (I recall there being serious tenting), I can't imagine anything more coming of it and in retrospect I did lose a valuable fuck buddy in Christophe—who I intend to ignore until he realizes he's done something wrong and takes me out to dinner. So, sexless and frustrated, I have come to the conclusion that it's best to just pretend that Craig Tucker doesn't exist and move on with my life.

I mean, it isn't like it actually matters. I'm way too old to get hung up and locked on—I haven't done that kind of shit since middle school. I could even say that I'm mellow these days. Totally fucking chill. But I can't help but wonder if Craig's thinking about the kiss, too. Clearly he told that chick not to say anything, and I guess she hasn't, or maybe nobody cares. Maybe everyone knows about it but it's like so underwhelming that nobody really gives a shit. Maybe they do give a shit, and I just think nobody is interested because I don't want to feel like the spazzy weird kid all fucking over again. Not that it fucking matters, what people think.

What Craig thinks. I mean, what does Craig really have to say, anyway? Dude had a fucking boner. Didn't he? Maybe I didn't give him a boner. Maybe his girlfriend gave him a fucking boner, and then I came in and rubbed my stiffy all over his leg like some kind of overexcited dog and now everyone in our grade is going to think I'm some kind of raging pervert.

I get impatient and attempt to tug my thoughts out through my air, but that just makes my scalp hurt so I try shifting in my seat and thinking about sex. Maybe if I get horny enough I'll tell Christophe how pissed off I am and speed up our inevitable recovery by a few days. Or maybe I can get Gregory to suck my fucking dick in public and then we can square. Even fucking Stevens.

My mood remains crummy and scattered all the way through third period, when I decide to grab a nap on my desk. It's not as easy as I'd like it to be for me to fall asleep, and when I do I dream that my hands are paws and that I have a wagging tail.

I'm woken up by the school bell and the burning eyes of my teacher who is looking at me like one might look at a well-read grapefruit. Like maybe I have some potential, but it's never gonna go anywhere because of who I am and thus my presence in her class is a waste of valuable resources. I smile at her in the nervous, innocent way that I've learned how and slink out of my desk.

As I step into the hallway, I realize how odd it is that I don't have a single class with Craig this year. Not that I'm complaining, it just seems strangely fortunate that after the stunt I pulled I get to avoid him easy peasy at school. Although, maybe, if I'm really lucky, I'll never have to look at him again. Maybe we can make it through all of senior year without ever noticing one another's existence, and when I run into him at the AMPM ten years from now we can smile like we didn't spend five minutes of one Friday night in high school making each other's dicks hard.

Or five minutes of me rubbing my hard dick against his irrelevantly yet equally hard dick.

I picture my face in the dream, so awkwardly attached to the body of a small dog and kind of laugh, kind of grimace. Maybe Craig is having similar dreams. Maybe Craig is having dreams about this kiss. Maybe last night we were lying awake at the same time with our hands in our underwear, trying to remember the exact taste of one another's mouths.

Or maybe Craig Tucker doesn't give a shit that I kissed him, and no one else in the fucking universe does either.

I daydream about this until I round the corner to my locker, when those hopes are immediately dashed by none other than Craig Tucker himself. He's leaning his ridiculously tall body against my locker like he belongs there, and he has his headphones in—kind of shuffling his feet, kind of nodding his head, kind of tapping his fingers. I freeze mid step, my knee locking up as my foot reconnects with the floor. The results is me lying face down on the linoleum, tears welling up in my eyes at the throbbing agony that is my kneecap, which has surely shattered into a thousand pieces upon impact. I think that maybe its high time someone sued this fucking district for the level of disregard to the health code. Laying down fake tile over concrete does not a safe floor make. I groan, shoving myself onto my knees and rubbing at my eyes before anyone can see that I've actually sprung a leak like a goddamn pussy. Craig is watching me with strangely calm eyes, his hands inside his jeans pockets. I wonder if he's come to punch my lights out, or if he's just decided that now that we've kissed my locker is his property and I'll have to snatch up my books and move them somewhere else. Maybe Kenny McCormick will share his—it's not like he keeps anything in there. Except weed. And condoms. And a bible that's missing about 600 pages.

I frown and pull myself to my feet, still wobbling from where the floor decided to get personal with my knee. My books don't balance right in my arms, and I drop one of them on my foot and kind of stagger, huffing in exasperation and picking the thing up with a little more force than I needed to. Craig's not looking at me anymore, maybe out of courtesy. Maybe out of disgust. Whatever it is, I decide I can't exactly turn tail at this point. And walking past him isn't really an option. And if I don't face up now he'll just beat me down outside of school and out there, there really aren't any rules. I decide after a moment that even the Prince of Passé can't really start anything in the middle of the hallway, and make a slow approach.

Craig glances up when I'm about three feet away and my heart makes a valiant attempt at ejecting itself through my mouth. I glance around, hoping that I'll see Em, or Lo, or Jen lurking in the hall somewhere but they're annoyingly absent. When I finally relent that my best friends aren't around to defend me from a proper ass whooping, I look back at him, feeling exasperated.

I open my mouth to say something like "Hey, fuck off" or "Hurry the fuck up" or "Convictions, Tucker!" but before I even get the chance to think about what I'm going to say to him he's got those laser eyes boring into my skull and I just kind of swallow whatever it was I was planning on saying and stare into the face of imminent doom.

"Who's Junk?"

It takes me a second to realize that he's talking to me and I nearly drop my books again. I eye him warily, unsure. As much as I want to believe that there is nothing hostile about this conversation, I've heard and seen too much of this fucking town to not have my guard up. Craig doesn't seem bothered by my defensive stance, and plows on without my reply.

"There's a sticker on your car. It says Junk. Who is Junk?"

My brain kicks back into gear and suddenly I'm annoyed. Because, first thing's first, what was this asshole doing looming around my car, and secondly, since when did he give a fuck?

"What does it matter to you?" I snip, yanking open my locker with a little more gusto than was probably necessary. The contents of my locker are a total hodgepodge, and I don't feel nearly as swish as a bunch of old coffee cups and Mrs. Fields cookie wrappers come tumbling out onto the floor. I bend down to pick them up as quickly as possible, shoving the garbage into my school bag as though it belongs there. I hear Craig snort and I stand up indignantly, having only overlooked the trajectory of my locker door by about a mile as I smash my forehead directly into it and let out a sound like a dying giraffe. Craig watches this happen with something like a _smirk _on his smug face and I want to slap it off. I don't have the guts to do anything like that, though. So instead I trade out my environmental book for AP Psych, and avoid looking in Tucker's crazy cat eyes until I really don't have a choice. Mostly because he's just _staring _at me, about four inches from my face.

"Is it your band? McCormick says you're in a band."

"Uh. Yeah. Yeah, It's my fucking band. Well, I mean. Not _my _fucking band. Music doesn't belong to anyone. But, it's the band I'm in. I play in that band. Called Junk."

Craig Tucker _smiles _and I feel placated all of a sudden, like the gesture alone has smoothed over my anxiety like a pin roller. I find this bothersome, as no one in the world has ever crammed my heart back into my chest cavity when it was so valiantly attempting to crawl out between my teeth just by smiling at me.

"When do you guys play?" Craig asks, and he's twisting one of the strings on his chullo hat between his fingers with the same air that girls use when they're examining their finger nails. I wonder if he's having a bad day, because I only ever see him wear the thing when he looks like he hasn't gotten any sleep. It occurs to me that maybe I've paid more attention to him in the last few years than I've realized and I go a bit red in the face.

"We have a show on Friday," I snap, and then curse myself for giving out that information so freely. What if he told people not to come? Or worse, what if he decided to come himself?

"Cool. Where?"

_Like I'd tell you where my show is, you cretin_ I think, and I stick my nose up in a huff before I reply,

"It's at the old train station. On the platform. Ten o'clock."

"Neat. Maybe I'll come."

"Yeah, cool," I say, and before I can really come to grips with what I've just done he's peeled his lanky body off my locker and stalked off down the hallway. I can hear the sound of his headphones from twenty feet away, and I think of shouting something petulant like "I hope you go deaf, asshole!" but I think I probably listen to mine louder and slam my locker closed instead.

* * *

><p>I'm leaning against the wall of the Park Country Station ticket booth, and my cigarette tastes like shit. It's Friday, and I'm wearing black slimfit jeans. Emily finds them less distracting, apparently, and since she has to stare at my ass for our entire set, I guess she's got the say-so on the subject. The woes of being the percussionist, I think, and knock the ash off the tip of my grit.<p>

I always smoke a few for nerves before a set, but I'm having an unusually high amount of anxiety about this gig in particular and have gone through half a pack already. My mind tells me immediately why that would be, but I'm still in pretty fervent denial that Craig Tucker's possible appearance at this event would have any effect on my mood what-so-ever. Who gives a fuck what Tucker thinks?

Even if he is the hottest boy in school.

Even if his lips did make my toes curl.

I sniff and toss my cigarette onto the pavement, crushing it under my leather boot.

"You better be ready, fuckface."

I hate when Jenny says shit like this. It makes me feel like she's about to walk me off the goddamn plank, or throw me into the Lion's den, or leave me sitting alone at the welfare office, or something equally irresponsible for a friend to do.

"I was born ready," I try to say, but my voice cracks like I'm twelve and she flips me off. I kind of want to run for the hills as we near the platform, and I nearly do except Emily grabs the scruff of my Bikini Kill tee-shirt and shoves me out in front of the crowd.

It seems like every teenager in the Park County area has gathered on the old train tracks, cramming like sardines into the narrow drop off below the platform. I can still remember when trains used to come through here, and feel irrationally nervous for half a second before I push those nerves aside and try to focus. Focus. Because even if everyone's looking at me, I've done this before. Because even if Craig Tucker did show, I know how to play a fucking guitar.

My guitar is waiting for me, resting in an unassuming position against my amp. I think for a second that if I could get my old Les Paul into lingerie, I'd fuck it. Fuck love. Fuck romance. It's all a fucking illusion—there is only me, my electric, and crotchless panties. I sigh and pick her up off the ground, slipping the strap over my shoulder. The weight of my baby works like a Xanax. I'm calmer than I've been in weeks, and I feel like I can think clearly. My thoughts come at a slow, reasonable place and I have time to experience each of them before they flit off somewhere else. I think this is what it's like to be normal, and thank God for the riot grrrl scene and cheap drugs.

I'm actually thinking this might go really well. It's too dark for me to see anyone's faces properly, so I can't really tell who's showed up at this thing and who hasn't. That's good. I hate when I know people I know are looking at me. I hate being looked at, period. I feel like when people look at me they're passing judgment, and since I don't know what it is they're thinking when they pass said judgment I just get really worked up and throw hissy fits. No one's looking at me now, though. Not tonight. Not with Lola in that outfit.

She's wearing a pair of bubble gum pink short-alls over a black lamé bra, with these Hello Kitty Chuck's and the word _SLUT_ painted across her stomach in glitter glue. I kind of want to give Jenny a thumbs up for that one, because it looks fucking _cool. _With her long, straight hair and her fucking headband, Lola has got to be the most bangable chick in Colorado this evening. And me, I am practically invisible. Incognito. And tomorrow no one will recall if Junk's guitarist was a pumped up teenage boy or a really intense lipstick les and I will resume my life as a seventeen year old nobody and that will be all peas and carrots for me. Peas and carrots for _everyone _really because if anyone ever tried to ask me about our music I'd probably stutter like a moron and puke on their shoes. I cannot handle attention from peers, especially people I'm not familiar with.

Someone flips on the platform's fluorescent light, and without much warning at all, Jenny barrels into a story about a girl who sewed up her pussy so that men couldn't touch her cat, and how the cat was really handsome and well groomed and eventually became some sort of world renowned riot superstar, until one day it jumped over the moon and ran off with Cheese because it liked the way Swiss junk smelled.

If I'm being honest with myself, Jenny's stories kind of freak me out. When we first started this band, I used to have nightmares about some of the shit she'd write on her blog. She's always been fond of fucked up cat stories especially, and I can't count on two hands how many bad dreams I've had about having my dick cut off by a whiskered cat-fiend with a custom guitar. The crowd seems to eat them up though, and as she continues on about some gender confused spoon, I come in with a riff. And then another. And another.

And just as I'm falling into the groove of the cover we're about to do, someone flashes a light across the crowd and I can see Craig Tucker in the very back, arms folded as he leans his stupidly tall figure against the fence.

My first instinct is to suffocate. To simply refuse breath, and let my tongue swell up until no air can possibly come through and die right on the spot where no one will have the wits to resuscitate me. My next instinct is to get angry, to throw my entire body into these next chords and show Craig Tucker what a total axewound he is for even thinking of coming to this fucking gig. My final instinct is to be flattered, and I decide instantly that it's my most stupid. Because being flattered means I wanted him to come, and wanting him to come means I was hoping he'd be impressed, and needing to impress someone as seemingly unimpressable as Craig Tucker is enough to make me forget the entire song like I've never held an instrument in my entire life. Emily is laying into the drums behind me, and Jenny comes in on bass, and I know that I'm next but all I can seem to comprehend are Craig Tucker's catlike violet eyes and I turn and heave right onto the cold pavement next to my foot. The crowd is cheering, I'm not sure if it's for me. Lola is screeching into the microphone about Pussycats, and I stare at the floor with my hands totally stiff. This is bad. Bad, bad, bad. Why would he come to this? Why does Craig care? I'm sure that I haven't seen Craig at any show I've ever been to around here. Which means…

Which means what exactly?

I grunt, closing my eyes. Just play the riff, Trevor. Just play the fucking riff.

You know this song, asshole.

_You know this song._

I sink my teeth into my lower lip and begin to play the chords. I can taste blood welling up on my tongue, and I know it's dripping down my chin, and the pain in my mouth is all that keeps my mind off of Craig and more on the phenomenally more terrifying ass whooping I'll receive from the girls later if I totally fuck this up. We make it through our next four songs this way, and when we close out our set and make way for the next group, Twolip, Emily claps me on the shoulder and says something about being a supertrooper but I'm too dazed to really reply. My stomach is churning and my lip is burning and there's blood all down the front of my Bikini Kill tee-shirt.

Why would he come to see this? Why does Craig Tucker care about my fucking band? About the band that I am in, since music doesn't belong to anybody? Why does Craig Tucker care about anything to do with me, at all? The last time I checked this guy was an animal-hoarding sociopath with a penchant for Red Racer reruns and Mary Jane. Okay, so having a couple of Guinea Pigs doesn't exactly make you an animal hoarder but the point is, is that this guy has no interest in the niceties of human interaction and suddenly he's stalking me.

Okay, he's not _stalking _me. Exactly. But it seems a little out of character for this douchebag, and since the idea that he's actually _interested_ in me just because I _kissed _him is inconceivable, I decide he must just be trying to fuck me around and that really pisses me off. I may not be the most mentally sound individual on the planet but I have fucking rights and fucking feelings and just because I have junk doesn't mean that they can't be wounded by some asshole being a fucking dick about a fucking stupid drunk kiss. I think of saying something to the girls about this, but they're all so charged up about the performance that we've just done that me being a Debbie seems pretty inconsiderate, so instead I grumble, "See you guys" and step away from the platform. They all seem to understand that I'm in the middle of a manstrual cycle and don't follow after me.

Twolip begins to play and I know that I won't run into anyone on the way to my car. Everyone and their fucking sister loves Twolip, because the lead singer's got her nipples done and always wears wet tee shirts to show them off. I kind of revel in the fact that I won't have to see any dickweeds tonight, or any drunk asslickers who will inevitably assume that I am a very flat-chested dyke and try to take me home. Home. I'm dying to be there. I wish I could disappear from where I am now and just pop into my fucking bed, pajamas on and all. I want to wash my face and maybe smoke a cigarette out my window and maybe jack off and then maybe go to sleep. Or maybe browse Web MD and see if I can prevent this mouth wound from becoming septic. Maybe watch some porn, and then jack off, and then Web MD and go to sleep. Maybe face, porn, jacking, Web MD, ice cream, cigarette, and then pass out?

I'm rearranging this routine in my head when I realize that the night isn't going to go that way at all, because Craig Tucker is once again leaning against my property like he belongs there, and I have the sinking feeling that this time I'm not gonna fucking escape.


End file.
